It wasn’t long after he helped launch Alexion Pharmaceuticals in the early 1990s when Joseph A. Madri, MD, PhD, professor emeritus of pathology, recalls one of Alexion’s co-founders, Leonard Bell (MD, ’84), talking to him about the company’s value.
“Lenny said to me, ‘You know Joe, one day this stock will be worth $1 or $2 and we can go out to dinner,’ ” Dr. Madri said. “It was worth a little more than that.”
The stock that Dr. Madri acquired as an Alexion founder and board member is benefitting a number of causes that matter to both him and his wife, Lucille, through the Joseph and Lucille Madri Family Foundation, including the annual Joseph A. & Lucille K. Madri Lecture in Pathology at Yale, held June 20, and the Joseph A. and Lucille K. Madri Professorship in Pathology.
“My goal for funding this lecture was to essentially enrich the department, especially the graduate students and the postdocs to let them see what superior investigators are like, and also as a resource to fund graduate students going to conferences. So it’ s for the betterment of the graduate students, which benefits the whole department,” Dr. Madri said.
The 2024 lecture featured Daniel A. Haber, MD, PhD, director, Mass General Cancer Center, Kurt J. Isselbacher Professor of Oncology, Harvard Medical School, and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Haber’s topic in a packed Brady Auditorium was, “Single Cell Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells.”
The Madri Foundation also supports at-risk youth in New Haven, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services of New Haven, CT Foodshare, the Fair Haven Clinic, Planned Parenthood, Doctors Without Borders, a preschool in Boston, where his son lives, and an organization that provides a social net for the needy in Columbus, Ohio, where his daughter lives. It also provides scholarships to Medical Science Training Program students at Indiana University, where he earned his graduate and medical degrees.
“I was one of the founders of Alexion Pharmaceuticals and after almost two decades as an independent director and co-founder, Alexion’s success enabled us to fund our foundation.”
Dr. Madri’s introduction into the world of medicine came by way of the medical equipment and furniture company his father and uncles, Italian immigrants, founded in New York City.
“Madri Brothers Inc., manufactured medical equipment, instruments and furniture. Madri Brothers held contracts with several city hospitals and my experience working at Madri Brothers enabled me to appreciate the workings of various hospitals,” he said. “That experience was instrumental in helping me decide on a medical career. I was interested in how things worked mechanically but also biologically.”
After his graduate education at IU, Dr. Madri came to Yale and remained. Its proximity to New York City, where he and his wife have family, helped.
“Over the years, I was recruited by several places, but I always felt that Yale was better. I was fortunate to interact with outstanding students, postdocs, and faculty, all of whom made me a better person and clinician/scientist. The students and postdocs that I have mentored over four decades at Yale have attained positions in academia, medical practice, business, and law.”
Dr. Madri said getting used to retirement was an adjustment at first, but he is enjoying reading world and medical/science history, something he didn’t have time for while working and running the foundation, which their children will do one day.
“The children will continue the work of the foundation. They’ll continue to help people in need, and that’s important.”